Help With Poor Posture

Shane732

I would never have considered myself to be someone with particularly bad posture. However, as I've got slightly older (I'm now 22) I've noticed that I tend to let my stomach "hang out" a bit.

The personal trainer I was seeing a while ago told me that this was due to poor posture and that I should practice holding my stomach in. This is something that I try to do on a regular basis but I don't think it's made any difference at all.

My stomach isn't in the best shape of it's not particularly bad either. Whatever bit of a gut I have is exasperated by the fact that I let my stomach hang out.

It appears to be something that a lot of my family do.

I'm wondering if you guys have any recommendations for exercises etc... that would help me improve this.

Cheers.

Challenge Fitness

Shane732 wrote: »

I would never have considered myself to be someone with particularly bad posture. However, as I've got slightly older (I'm now 22) I've noticed that I tend to let my stomach "hang out" a bit.

The personal trainer I was seeing a while ago told me that this was due to poor posture and that I should practice holding my stomach in.

As a Personal trainer, this is something I have never heard of before.

Letting your stomach "hang out" may change how you look but will not change the basic fundamental problem.

100% of posture problems come from you bone structure and how your stance, weight etc. affects your posture. And if it is your stomach that you are worried about, then the problem is your spine. You could be overweight in which case your weight in affecting your posture - ie. lose weight, or you have a poor posture in which case you need to work on certain muscles which improve your posture or, more likely, you need to stand up properly (Lordosis)

The best option is to ask an expert to be sure.

Shane732

Challenge Fitness wrote: »

As a Personal trainer, this is something I have never heard of before.

Letting your stomach "hang out" may change how you look but will not change the basic fundamental problem.

100% of posture problems come from you bone structure and how your stance, weight etc. affects your posture. And if it is your stomach that you are worried about, then the problem is your spine. You could be overweight in which case your weight in affecting your posture - ie. lose weight, or you have a poor posture in which case you need to work on certain muscles which improve your posture or, more likely, you need to stand up properly (Lordosis)

The best option is to ask an expert to be sure.

I'm about 5' 8-9" and around the 11 stone mark. I don't know whether you would consider this overweight?

I would call myself overweight but I do need to do some work to get rid of the bit of excess fat that I've built up. I'm probably around 17% body fat (with the majority of this through my stomach).

What exercises would you recommend?

gymsoldier

Shane732 wrote: »

I'm about 5' 8-9" and around the 11 stone mark. I don't know whether you would consider this overweight?

I would call myself overweight but I do need to do some work to get rid of the bit of excess fat that I've built up. I'm probably around 17% body fat (with the majority of this through my stomach).

What exercises would you recommend?

You not overweight. Why would you consider yourself to be so?
As for your stomach, it could be possible lumbar lordosis.

Apart from your stomach, are your shoulders rounded as well?

Here is a small picture; can you put yourself to the left or right of the center balanced posture?

Shane732

gymsoldier wrote: »

You not overweight. Why would you consider yourself to be so?
As for your stomach, it could be possible lumbar lordosis.

Apart from your stomach, are your shoulders rounded as well?

Here is a small picture; can you put yourself to the left or right of the center balanced posture?

I don't think I'm overweight but I'm not in perfect condition either.

Of the right pictures I think I'd be most like the right.

I tend to almost stand back off my stomach a bit. It's something a lot of my family do. It's not very bad but it does tend to make me look like I have a stomach when I don't really have much of a one at all.

Any recommendations on how to improve this?

faceman

Shane732 wrote: »

Any recommendations on how to improve this?

I had bad posture too although with my shoulders. My doctor referred me to a physiotherapist (as i was not in any pain)

The physiotherapist will give you an exercise program to help adjust your posture. Its pretty intense too, you got to keep at it.

Shane732

faceman wrote: »

I had bad posture too although with my shoulders. My doctor referred me to a physiotherapist (as i was not in any pain)

The physiotherapist will give you an exercise program to help adjust your posture. Its pretty intense too, you got to keep at it.

Cheers.

TimeToShine

its called lordosis.

you need to stretch your hip flexors to minimise its effect, just google lordosis remedial exercises or something and go on from there.

mack32

check out this article i think there's five articles in the series
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance_repair/neanderthal_no_more_part_i

now im going to hazard a guess here and say that you spend a lot of time sitting down/working at a desk?

what you're describing is a fairly common problem and there are lots of ways you can correct it, the article above goes into a greta amount of detail but here are the footnotes-

- strenghten your glutes and Core (as distinct from your trunk) and external rotators in your shoulders
- stretch your hip flexors and do as much soft tissue work on yourself as you can, you'll probably need to concentrate on your thoracic spine, pecs, glutes, hamstrings and quads, check this out for some ideas - www.mobilitywod.com
- abandon all bench pressing/pressing exercises in general, and shrugs

you should see a rapid improvement if you manage to follow the recommendations in the article but just remember that this is the result of years of poor posture and it won't go away overnight so don't get disheartened

Shane732

mack32 wrote: »

check out this article i think there's five articles in the series
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance_repair/neanderthal_no_more_part_i

now im going to hazard a guess here and say that you spend a lot of time sitting down/working at a desk?

what you're describing is a fairly common problem and there are lots of ways you can correct it, the article above goes into a greta amount of detail but here are the footnotes-

- strenghten your glutes and Core (as distinct from your trunk) and external rotators in your shoulders
- stretch your hip flexors and do as much soft tissue work on yourself as you can, you'll probably need to concentrate on your thoracic spine, pecs, glutes, hamstrings and quads, check this out for some ideas - www.mobilitywod.com
- abandon all bench pressing/pressing exercises in general, and shrugs

you should see a rapid improvement if you manage to follow the recommendations in the article but just remember that this is the result of years of poor posture and it won't go away overnight so don't get disheartened

Thanking you kindly for the information you've given.

Yes - you are correct. I work in an office and spend the majority of my day at a desk working on a computer.

I will read through the information and links you've posted and if I've any further queries I'll post them up here.

Thank you.

Shane732

Have you guys got any other good websites that would give me exercises to do?

There's a lot of contradictory information out there on google!!!

Thanks for the mobility world link.

TimeToShine

http://www.exrx.net/ExInfo/Posture.html

sportinglegend

mobilitywod.com daily video blog with flexibility exercises would help with flexibility and posture.

Mike Reinold and Eric Cressey would be coaches well worth searching for articles they have published.

mack32

check out some of mike robertson's articles too